Character Creation Pt. 2

Now for the tricky part.

Career Choices:

The Career and Specialization choices are related in that they both affect your skills. There are a 6 different combinations. 3 careers, each with 2 specializations, each giving you a different final skill set.

As I've already selected away from the business/trade path with my low Charisma, so I have four choices left.

The choices are:

1. Industry Career with either one of the Engineer or Prospector specialties.
2. Military Career with either one of the Soldier or Special Forces specialties.

Now, I want to shoot stuff and head off into pvp - so the obvious choice would be the military choice. However the industry career offers one special happy skill combo: Analytical Mind/Instant Recall at either 2/4 or 4/2 depending on specialty. Either way this is a big boost to working through the learning category, something that many players like to spend much of the first month doing in any case.

To me, the mining skills combined with the int/mem bonus is a legitimate approach to starting off, even for a combat career. Making your basic cash while training the learning skills isn't a bad way to do it.

On the other hand:

The military career gives a 2/4 or 4/2 Will/Per bonus. Not a boost on heading into the learning category skills, but will let me work on military skills without too much of a penalty if necessary while the learning category is slowly accumulating.

Now am I willing to mine from the get-go and wait a fair while to get into the combat game seriously, or should I jump in feet first and have my learning and non-military skills play catch-up.

Tough choice. If I was a complete beginner I would probably go the industry route to build up a cash base and get to know the game better first. But I have a char (if I choose to restart it) that can almost fly dedicated mining ships, so if I want to play that game I'll restart that char. So I'll go the military route.

Special Forces vs. Soldier

These choices basically boil down to the skills and specific ship fittings you plan to use. If you prefer short range fighting then soldier is your choice (rockets/gunner/rapid launch skills).

If you prefer some distance between the target and yourself (missile bombardment) then Special forces are your choice.

I chose Special Forces. I know how to fight with missiles. I'll have to teach myself how to use the other weapons properly before I'm comfortable using them.

And there we are.

We whip up a picture and try to figure out a name... damn. I always find that last bit difficult.

Using the initials I use here I come up with Liet Vim.

And that's that. The character is made, time to go hunting.

Character Creation Pt. 1

I admit it, I'm a bit of a min-maxer. I like to get the most out of my early numbers. The character creation system in EVE gives everyone about the same amount of skill points in their skills. However there are some meta-skills that make learning skills a faster process. These are the 'Learning' category skills. They don't affect your skills in-game, just the speed at which you learn. Thus they speed your long term development while crimping your immediate access to a variety of skills. Take a look here for more info on this.

This wasn't the first thing on my mind when I started this character, but it was the third thing. The first thing I thought about was my ability to write the character. I'm not a good writer like this guy. I'm not even average, so I have to play someone I understand. This means my choices are somewhat curtailed. Thought number two was that I wanted to fly ships that look cool from the start.

The first choice you make in character creation is the ever classic race:
Gallente
Caldari
Amarr
Minmatar

The Amarr are religious fanatics. Strike one. Can't deal with that mentality.
The Minmatar are cool underdogs. Ships look a bit hmm... cobbled together. Strike Two.

Ok, we're down to two choices.

The Caldari are focused on Civil Duty and Military Efficiency.
The Gallente are all about Freedom and Liberty - and are a 'functioning' democracy.

Their ships are both ok looking. Caldari more gothic/angular, the Gallente more organic/rounded. Tied so far.

Gallente ships are often heavy on drones.
Caldari are shield and missile oriented.

Hmm... I was never very good at handling drones in the first place. I think the Caldari have it.


After choosing your race you pick your bloodline:

This choice is primarily a mechanical and aesthetic choice. Mechanical because it determines your attributes, aesthetic because it determines the base your mugshot is built on.

Mechanically there are 5 attributes:

• Charisma
• Intelligence
• Memory
• Perception
• Willpower

These determine the speed at which you learn skills related to the attribute. They have no specific gameplay effect beyond affecting the speed at which you learn skills (as far as I know). In terms of mechanics it is a good idea to at least have a ballpark idea of what you want to do with a character before settling down on a stat set. Charisma is generally considered a weak stat as it primarily affects non-combat skills related to commerce, but sacrificing it completely is a bit dicey. A balanced stat set is generally considered desirable as overall progression is smoother that way.

My Caldari options are:

• Civire - 6/5/4/9/6
• Deteis - 6/7/7/5/5
• Achura - 3/8/6/7/6
  

You also get 5 freely distributable points.

Because memory and intelligence are two skills that primarily affect the learning skills as well as other useful skills I'm hesitant to have these be low. Willpower and Perception are key for ship and weapon skills, these are also important for the character I want. I'm not planning to go the trading route, I can reactivate my old char if I want to do that.

Achura are probably the best choice from this perspective. The weak charisma stat will hurt in the long run, and the male picture is not too aesthetically pleasing (the morphing options definitely improve the default), the female picture on the other hand is not bad (they never are in games). In terms of style I'll have to make a gender choice for the writing, as that does make a difference, but in-game, and mechanically, it's not a big deal at all. In terms of doing what I want with the character an Achura is mechanically the best choice. I'll go with male for the writing style and for the sake of keeping it simple.

The next step is distributing my 5 spare points. I go 0/1/3/0/1 giving me 3/9/9/7/7. Balanced, but also keeping the next choice in mind.

Also affecting the attributes is 'Ancestry'. The choices are philosophical is an RPG sense, but essentially they are a simple mechanical choice. My options are:

• Inventors +4 int
• Stargazers +3 mem +1 per
• Monks +2 per +2 will

As I've already balanced my stats with this in mind the obvious choice is monks. That will give me 3/9/9/9/9 - well balanced except for the charisma. Training social/trading skills will be very painful.

As I've finished with the stats. I'll continue this in the next post.

So here we are....

A quick intro:

I like the game EVE. I think it's interesting and enjoyable (for the most part). It's also the prettiest screen saver you will ever have, even if you run APOD pictures in rotation. I decided, this time around, to make something more out of it and try to use the game as a vehicle to work some writing practice into my daily routine.

The choices I made before starting the blog:

This blog will have both 'in character' and 'out of character' posts. IC posts will be in a diary format and will relate as closely to things happening to me in-game. OOC posts will cover things like character creation, comments and other points of interest. Some blogs will be a mix, and I will clearly mark them as such.

EVE Background:

This is not my first character. I had another character earlier that I was happy about, but I ran out of time to play and had to stop just as playing started getting really fun. Therefore I know many of the basics of gameplay, but I am in no way an expert or even an above average player.

The rule of fun:

I'm pretty strict with myself these days: My main goal when playing games is to have fun. If things aren't in some way conducive to fun they really aren't worth spending my precious spare time on and I stop them in short order. This is one way to increase the fun value of the game.

I hope you all enjoy this.